


Stop Looking Down And Look At Me Instead

by ViolentFlowers



Category: Scott Pilgrim (Comics), Scott Pilgrim - All Media Types
Genre: Alive Roxie Richter, Chromatic Yuletide, Cunnilingus, Drunken Kissing, F/F, Femslash, First Time, Misses Clause Challenge, Missing Scene, POV Female Character, Pining, Yuleporn, Yuletide 2014, minor Ramona Flowers/Roxie Richter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-02 07:13:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2804045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolentFlowers/pseuds/ViolentFlowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kim expects a lot of things to go differently.</p><p>“When we were drunk last time at the beach house… did we kiss?” Knives says. “I kind of feel like we did?”</p><p>Oh, well that explains why Knives doesn’t seem to care about that night: she doesn’t remember. Typical. Kim smacks her hand against her face and laughs. Months of being stupidly obsessed with an underage girl and it doesn’t matter at all.</p><p>“Is that a yes?” Knives stammers when Kim goes quiet, her hand still covering her face. “Because I’ve been having some very vivid dreams and if it was all a drunken fantasy I’d like to know. So I can never talk to you again because wow, awkward.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop Looking Down And Look At Me Instead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BatchSan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatchSan/gifts).



For a week now, there’s been a note on Kim’s refrigerator that reads “lower your expectations.” Every time she opens the door looking for her missing food, she sees it.

When she moved into her new apartment with Hollie and Joseph, the note was already there. It wasn’t a surprise for her. That note’s followed her from every crappy apartment and dorm room she’s ever had, and at this point she’s pretty sure that no one's playing a joke on her.

It’s like a secret code she can’t figure out how to use. It’s always in her inventory.

She stares at it for a long time.

“You’re letting the air out,” Hollie says from behind her. When Kim turns and looks at her, the grin that never leaves her face is still on her face.

“Don’t you have work?” Kim says, as she pulls the door wider to really look inside. Nope, her food is still missing.

“Kim Pine, did you memorize my schedule?” Hollie reaches past her to grab something from inside: it’s Kim’s milk.

Back in high school, her boyfriend moved away suddenly, and she only found out because Lisa told her. Now she just expects things like that to happen. She doesn’t expect to have friends for long, and her boyfriends always leave her; she doesn’t need a reminder on her fridge to have low expectations.

“We both work at the same place. I may have needed to know when to avoid being there so I don’t have to talk to people I hate.”

“Good to know.” Hollie smiles as she pours Kim’s milk into a glass and then chugs it in one go.

When Hollie leaves for work, Kim goes into the pantry and steals her snacks. Kim doesn’t get attached anymore (she does), she just expects things to go bad.

Her expectations have always been low, so low that everyone assumes there must be a story in her past that explains her. But she was like this even before her ill-fated high school romance with Scott Pilgrim. Still, it’s the elephant in the room (if the room was the size of a bathtub and the elephant the size of a whale).

She’s not broken.

\-----

Kim started dating Jason Kim last week (Yes Scott, Kim). He’s nice, has a car, and if she trusted her friends’ opinions, she’d think she picked well. She hasn’t been thinking about what she’s expecting.

Except some stupid part of her is still freaking out and hoping that a drunken kiss from a high schooler will lead to something. It’s been weeks and she's still thinking about what it means that she’s still thinking about it. Kim hates that part of her and wishes it would stop making her feel this way. She turns to look out the door of the video rental store and just misses the edge of someone passing by for the second time.

No one she knows would stalk around outside instead of barging in. She calls Jason and has a long conversation about nothing and doesn’t look outside again until the door opens and the bell rings (it’s Scott).

She’s disappointed for no reason. What was she expecting? After all, she’s pretty sure Knives only kissed her because she’s still completely and totally hung up on Scott and all of his everything and Kim unfortunately dated Scott in high school. No one knows better than Kim what it’s like to be so hung up on someone that you obsess about them, even though they moved on the very second they dumped you.

A couple drunken kisses shouldn’t mean anything to Kim (she reminds herself… again).

She doesn’t think about Knives at all. Not even late at night, when Hollie’s music is too loud. Kim doesn’t lay in bed, touching herself, thinking about what could have happened like a dirty perv. Nope. If only they hadn’t been so drunk, she remembers giggling, Kim finds herself more embarrassed by her drunken laughter than anything else.

It feels weird every time after she gets off. Lying in her bed, breathing hard, hand in her underwear. It shouldn’t feel so good to think about another girl, and one who is only 17. Kim’s going to be 24 soon. She’s a hypocrite for making fun of Scott and she doesn’t feel bad about it.

She’s not sure what she’s expecting; Knives isn’t going to come around to see her. She knew that already, even before they kissed.

Kim stops ignoring Scott and let’s herself get caught up in his drama and for a little while doesn't think about Knives.

\-----

Kim hasn’t been avoiding Knives because there’s nothing to avoid. The other girl never mentions their kisses, and when she’s there she mostly hangs around Steven Stills - which is weird enough that Kim starts to wonder if Knives is trying to kiss the whole band. Collect them all. But Kim can’t help noticing that Knives still only has eyes for Scott.

She’s watching her, watching Scott. It’s a problem that Kim’s ignoring. She tries to only think about Knives at night when she figures it’s fine to stop lying to herself.

She’s been thinking a lot about this crush ever since she broke up with Jason, in the perfect storm of ‘Kim Pine’s special life of suck’ her new boyfriend cheated on her with her new roommate. Kim’s been spending a lot of time listening to her music on her headphones while staring at her ceiling, stabbing a little doll that looks like Hollie, and avoiding the kitchen. The sad thing is she not even that surprised.

Tonight she actually left her apartment so she can get drunk and stare at Julie’s ceiling. Another of one of Julie’s terrible costume parties continues to be a thing she has to listen to below her. They’ve got to stop going to these things. She turns her head and, oh that’s right, Ramona is next to her.

“How did you even end up dating a girl?" Kim asks, squinting to try and make Ramona one person instead of two. It's not the best time to bring it up, so soon after Scott defeated Roxie but Ramona just smiles at Kim.

They are so wasted. Kim tried to sit up five minutes ago and she lost 100 hp.

"College. Why? Is there a girl you like?" Ramona says and Kim watches her lips like a complete creeper. She’d been thinking about going back to school but not to pick up girls. Mostly because she has no idea what she’s doing with her life.

"Not really." Kim shrugs, she’s really not ready to talk about Knives even though she needs to talk about it. "Is there a power up?"

"It's more like a badge," Ramona says wiggling her eyebrows and throwing her arms out. She knocks something off the bed, whatever it is makes a noise when it hits the ground. Kim hopes it's not the tequila.

It’s not, she's still holding the bottle. It's all the tequila's fault that she's even asking about Ramona’s ex but she takes another drink anyway. Julie's party is reaching a peak below them and while it was loud downstairs, they've found this strange a little bubble of privacy upstairs on the bed with all the coats. Scott went to the bathroom a moment or maybe five minutes ago, it could have been an hour. Kim's not sure, but it's been awhile so he's probably lost or fighting someone.

He's on Evil Ex number 5 or 6 right now. Kim's too buzzed to figure out which one, or to stand up and find Scott to ask, or even to do simple math. It's not really important so long as Ramona is here and happy.

She remembers lips, the smell of apple shampoo and whiskey. Straight black hair falling through her fingers as the other girl pushed closer to her. Kisses pressed against her lips. Excitement and heat. A smile without any sharp edges. _Forget about boys. Boys are stupid. Just keep kissing my lips. The lips that have kissed the lips that you've kissed._

She had a pretty boring college experience at Nipissing and didn’t end up exploring any of the other dialog routes. She doesn’t know the first thing about trying to date a girl.

Why is she even thinking about this?

“It’s weird that no one asked about Roxie and me," Ramona continues as if picking up from some conversation that they've never had and yet hitting way too close to the one Kim is having in her head.

"No one asked about any of your evil exes," Kim said. "You told us about them anyway."

The bed moves and Kim gets a really good view of Ramona’s shoulders when she takes the tequila from her. "Roxie was different."

"You liked her." Just the expression of concern on Ramona's face makes Kim feel better that she'd made that a statement.

"Not enough, I guess. Maybe."

"How did you get together?"

Ramona leans against the headboard and behind her a movie shows little Roxie and Ramona.

"She was my roommate in college. We hated each other and yet we were trapped in the same room, so we couldn’t avoid each other. She’d jump out of nowhere and scare the crap out of me and then say she was ‘training’ me.” Ramona rolls her eyes. “But I think she just liked touching me more than anything else. It was like a game. I'd turn around and she'd be there.”

“Sounds terrible, what changed?”

"Nothing changed.” Ramona blushed. “It’s just, Roxie never wore pants in the dorm room. She'd walk in and close the door and it was like, poof, panties.” Ramona gets a far away look in her eyes. “Legs. Hips. It was a lot to take in."

Ramona looks off to the side and then smiles. "After a while I had to admit that I liked her. Not to mention I got good at catching her sneaking up on me. It was all skin on skin, it felt nice that she could hold me down. Soon, I was the one holding her down." The little picture show behind Ramona’s head shows Roxie and her pressed close together. Both of them in bras and panties.

“We always fought, though. And then we broke up.” Ramona kisses a guy and hiding behind a tree Roxie’s heart breaks. Roxie disappears in a cloud of smoke.

“You cheated on her?”

“I was kind of a bitch.”

The atmosphere gets heavy for a moment but Ramona breaks the downward spiral with a shrug and a swig of tequila. “That’s behind me now.”

“There’s something I’ve always wanted to know though.”

“Shocking!”

“Did you still end up going to her art gallery opening?”

That was not the question Ramona was expecting. “You can’t tell Scott but yeah, I did.”

“How did that work out?”

“It was billed as ‘Death of the Artist’, very avant garde. She showed up in a coffin.”

“Wait, she showed up?”

Ramona smiles. “She always loved making an entrance and exit.”

Kim laughs rolling her eyes. “Pft, Ninjas.”

\-----

Kim might have been drunk at the time but she remembers everything that happened the night Knives kissed her. She remembers giggling, and the sound of her own stupid voice slurred and unhappy talking about how boys are the worse. All of the boys, every single one of them.

Knives was asking about what it was like dating Scott in high school so it’s no surprise that’s where the conversation went.

But Knives just nods and she’s looking at Kim’s lips and telling her something about kissing and Kim leans over just to get a little closer because Knives is whispering and Knives moves forward so their lips meet. It’s awkward and stilted for a moment and then Kim reaches out and tilts Knives’ head a little to the side and deepens the kiss.

They move against each other panting when they break apart. Then Knives pets Kim’s face. Her lips and body tingling; Kim doesn’t know what to do. She ends up having a little mental breakdown while Knives passes out on the floor in the middle of telling Kim that she’s too good a kisser for boys. Kim watches her sleep like a weirdo before taking the train home, she doesn’t get any rest that night.

Kim still thinks about it. How warm Knives was when they were pressed against each other. She wishes that they hadn’t been drunk even though that’s probably the only reason Knives kissed her. But still, she thinks about it. A lot. Her thoughts are different at night when Kim presses fingers against herself; hips rolling as she thinks of pushing Knives down on that bed. Kim tugging open Knives jacket, untying her top, and pulling her swimsuit bottoms down. Spreading Knives’ legs open so Kim can lick.

Kim ends up two fingers desperately pressing down on her clit as she rubs herself to climax to the image of Knives flushed, sweaty, and completely on display for Kim.

Kim feels bad about it afterwards laying in bed sticky and panting. But it feels so good, the only thing she’s really mad at herself about is that she cares that Knives doesn’t seem to care.

\-----

After everything with Ramona’s Seven Evil Exes, Sex Bo-omb is still in limbo. They’re pretty much broken up, and they’ve told Scott that like eight times but it doesn’t seem to stick. In the meantime Kim and Scott reveal their two person cover band to the lackluster reviews of their biggest fans: Knives and Neil. They've finally acquired taste, they even got a badge with the achievement. Kim may have had a small break down.

There’s drinking. Kim finds herself hiding in Scott’s bedroom in his new apartment. She escaped when Scott started telling Ramona a story about Magneto out in the main room. Why he was using Kim’s phone isn’t clear but it’s all a bit too sweet and Kim’s avoiding thinking about how much things have changed and how she feels like she’s just spinning her wheels.

She spent a month at home up north, alternately freaking out about her life and going to parties, getting drunk, and kissing girls. Kim’s parents took it in stride, forcing their parental love on her by nagging her about going back to college and leaving a stack of blank college applications for her. She may have filled some out if only to show them. In the end, it was good for her to finally move away from the apartment situation with Hollie and whatever way too close to home gay crisis Steven Stiles was having.

Scott, of course visits her and ruins her downward spiral with his downward spiral. Still it’s good that they talked, even if that high school hurt will never really go away and maybe Scott is going to ruin his chances again with Ramona. Kim feels simultaneously more grounded, and yet still adrift.

Kim hears the door open and looks up to find Knives pressed up against the door as if holding it closed. Knives bites her bottom lip and her eyes skim over to Kim taking in her relaxed pose across Scott’s bed before her eyes skittering away to look around the room. There’s not much else in the room though so Knives ends up looking at her again. It’s a searching look this time. Knives combs a hand through her hair, pulling it back from her face.

“Um,” she says, her voice cracking before taking a sip from her cup and clearing her throat.

Kim waits raising an eyebrow. There’s a reason she’s laying down and she’s not moving, no matter how much she wants to get up and pin Knives to the door.

“When we were drunk last time at the beach house… did we kiss?” Knives says. “I kind of feel like we did?”

Oh, well that explains why Knives doesn’t seem to care about that night: she doesn’t remember. Typical. Kim smacks her hand against her face and laughs. Months of being stupidly obsessed with an underage girl and it doesn’t matter at all.

“Is that a yes?” Knives stammers when Kim goes quiet, her hand still covering her face. “Because I’ve been having some very vivid dreams and if it was all a drunken fantasy I’d like to know. So I can never talk to you again because wow, awkward.”

“We kissed,” Kim mumbles looking between her fingers at her stupid crush. But all Knives does is light up like the sun.

“Oh, thank god. I mean you’re just so cool and I remember, um that it was nice and I’m not… I got over Scott. And I… I don’t know, I was thinking that maybe…” Knives seems to brace herself before blurting, “Doyouwanttomakeoutagain?”

Kim’s still muttering through that when Knives adds, “Sex! I mean, we should have sex!”

“How much have you had to drink?” Kim asks, because she’s had plenty and this could be a dream.

“I’m not drunk, I can decide to have casual sex! I’m an adult now. That could be a thing,” Knives replies.

“Oh yeah, you had a birthday.” Kim makes a face and nods to herself. “Get over here and pinch me before I really start to think about how old you are.”

Knives puts down her drink and trips over a box in her rush to straddle Kim on the bed. “You aren’t that much older than me.”

"I was in grade school when you were born," Kim says as she scoots to the edge of the bed.

Knives grabs a hold of Kim's jacket pulling her toward her. "Wow, yeah lets stop talking about that."

Their lips miss the mark the first try and Kim ends up kissing Knives’ nose which makes them both start giggling. “Shhh, shhhh, shhhh,” Kim chastises before she threads her hand through Knives’ hair and brings their mouths together at first with soft brushes before deepening the kiss. Knives is warm and soft, but unlike Kim’s fantasies, Knives moves: her hands run down Kim’s back as she squirms to get closer until she's pretty much sitting in Kim's lap.

“Do you still want me to pinch you?” Knives asks when they break apart to breathe. Kim laughs.

“Nah, this dream is great,” Kim says, as she tries to roll them over but misjudges how steady she is, the two of them ending up in a pile on the floor. Knives’ giggles cut off in a gasp when Kim bites her neck.

There's a loud crash from behind the door and the two of them jolt. Their breathing is loud in the quiet of the room. Kim turns from the riveting scene of a closed door being closed to find Knives looking at her.

"There are too many boys here," Kim says. She really wants to kiss Knives again, but doesn’t want to do it on Scott's bed with Scott and Neil outside. But she’s not that picky; Scott owes her. But Knives shakes her head.

"We should have casual sex, somewhere that's not here," Knives says, and then blushes. Kim blinks at her and then grabs the girl by the hand. Her apartment is near by. She had been embarrassed by how close her and Scott’s new apartments ended up being, but she’s not laughing now.

They open the door to find Scott passed out on the ground still holding Kim’s phone, a dopey smile on his face. Neil waves lazily from where he ended up mostly upside down on the couch playing his Gameboy. Kim reaches down to grab her phone from Scott's hand and flips it closed hoping that Scott at least said goodnight to Ramona before he passed out.

“Later dudes,” Kim says, and she and Knives slip into the night.

\-----

Ten minutes and a couple of stolen kisses later, Kim manages to open the door while kissing Knives against it earning an achievement. They end up falling into the front room of her new place, barely missing a giant pile of boxes that still need to be unpacked. Kim’s no longer feeling drunk. While it makes her feel much less like this is all a dream, she feels way more self conscious about everything. So she pushes Knives past all the boxes and into the bedroom, tipping her onto the bed, which is about the only part of Kim’s life that’s in order at this point.

Kim climbs onto the bed and straddles Knives.

“Oh my gosh,” Knives says when Kim pulls off her shirt and then follows that up with, “Wooooowwwww,” as she reaches up to cup Kim’s boob, her fingers digging into Kim’s bra.

“Is this okay?” Knives asks when all Kim does is stare at her.

Kim has no idea what to say to that. How did they even get here? Is she freaking out? Knives’ face gets a pinched look the longer Kim remains quiet. “I can stop?”

“I don’t want you to. I just… I guess I’m freaking out a little.”

Knives lets out a relieved sigh. “Oh, good! I mean, me too. I’ve never done this with a girl before.”

And just like that, everything feels less crowded in Kim’s head. “What do you want to do?”

“Can I just touch you? I mean, freckles. Everywhere,” Knives blurts out and then nervously brushes her hair behind her ear.

“Well you’re off to a good start,” Kim says looking down at Knives' hand still cupping her boob. Knives blushes but doesn’t remove her hand so Kim reaches behind her and unsnaps her bra.

Knives helps pull Kim’s bra off and tosses it off the bed. She studies Kim’s chest and then pushes Kim over, hands warm on her shoulders, so that their positions end up reversed. After a second of indecision and fiddling, Knives pulls her own top and bra off. Kim stares at the other girl’s chest and smiles when Knives blushes.

Knives’ hands hover over Kim, unsure of their welcome so Kim reaches out and pulls Knives’ hands onto her breasts. Knives goes completely red as she squeezes. “Wow,” she says as she feels Kim up. It’s not very arousing to her but Kim arches her body a little watching Knives freeze, before her fingers continue, dragging over a nipple to follow the freckles on Kim’s skin. Knives ducks her head to lick Kim’s boob. It’s wet and makes Kim giggle uncontrollably. Knives looks confused and says, “Sorry, that was way sexier in my head.”

Kim keeps laughing but seeing the hurt on Knives’ face gently rolls them over and kisses the other girl, letting their bodies tangle; they both gasp when their legs slot together. Kim rocks against her. “It’s not you, I’m just not really sensitive there.”

Knives pushes up to match Kim’s movement, hands roaming down the skin of Kim’s back. “What? Really? Not even your nipples?”

“It feels nice, it’s just not what gets me going.” Kim looks at Knives with a smirk and rubs herself on the other girl, making her gasp. “I really want to lick you.”

“Really? I mean, yes!” Knives tries to hide her face in her hand. “God, I’m so lame.” But Kim just kisses her hands and waits for Knives to look at her.

“You’re going to have to take off your underwear,” Kim says as she raises an eyebrow, waiting for Knives work out what she means.

"What? But ohhhh. I've never... oh, okay. Yes please," Knives says hands flying to her clothing eager and excited.

Kim wants to make it good for Knives. She wants it to mean something; she doesn’t want Knives to pretend this never happened. Kim shakes her head. If this is the only time they do this, she wants it to be a good memory.

Kim reaches down to pull off her own clothing. Knives stops half way through pulling off her stockings to watch and ends up falling over the side of the bed.

“I’m fine!” She says, popping up to her feet.

Kim pulls her back onto the bed and rolls Knives under her, sliding a hand down to cup Knives between her legs. Knives is already wet, and whines when Kim’s fingers slide between the outer labia to rub her clit. Knives gasps and shivers when Kim slides her hand just a little further down to tease the edge of Knives’ inner opening, feeling the slick heat as Knives pushes back, begging wordlessly for more.

Exploring. Kim kisses down the girl's chest, licking and biting Knives’ sensitive nipples. Knives' eyes are closed her face red, gasping breaths and moans escape as Kim presses and rubs upward in circles against the girl's clit. Hot and wet, she spreads Knives’ legs, sliding her body down to kneel on the floor. Kim presses one of her hands against herself to make her shiver before she uses both hands to spread Knives open. She ducks her head down and licks where her fingers have been. Knives arches up, her legs squeezing together holding Kim right where she wants to be. She presses her face in and licks up and down with long wet strokes, feeling the other girl buck under her, pressing her crotch to Kim's mouth, begging for more.

Kim finds a rhythm licking into Knives, running her fingers down Knives labia getting them wet with slick. She presses a finger slowly around Knives entrance but when she pushes inside Knives’ walls don’t give. She feels Knives’ body jerk and tremble, so Kim stops, doesn't push any further. She looks up to find that Knives is panting but her body is tense.

Knives gasps, “Sorry, I’ve just, I don’t…,” she trails off. “I’m too tight.”

“Don’t worry,” Kim says, pulling her finger out and then licking her in apology, making Knives moan and squirm again, slowly relaxing once more. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” she says and thrusts her tongue into her in little licks, going slightly deeper each time. Knives throws her head back, gasping, her hands grabbing Kim’s head to pull her closer. She licks into her with short little wet jabs, teasing the entrance as her fingers rub above on her clit. Kim alternates between that and sucking on her clit right where the folds meet. Kim’s name escaping from Knives’ mouth like a mantra. So Kim picks up the speed until Knives tenses, contracting in stuttering pulses as she climaxes. Shivering Knives gasps in deep breaths, hands gripping Kim’s hair holding her in place as if she was going to go anywhere.

Kim clenches down on her own shivering feeling when she pulls back. Knives is completely relaxed her legs and hands limp, body moving only to drag in air. She’s flushed and sweaty, her legs still spread open, her body completely on display as Kim rubs herself, gasping desperately to her own climax.

They lay gasping on the bed for a bit.

“Wow,” Knives says and Kim laughs. “Stop laughing, I just, this is not what I expected.”

Kim kisses her and they cuddle closer for a little bit, relaxing in each others’ space before Knives adds, “I’ve just never had an orgasm like that; I like the licking. I was just expecting it’d be more like sticking something inside? But that always hurts so...”

“You’ve never just humped your pillow?”

“What, no!” Knives looked horrified, then shocked. “You can do that?”

Kim just laughs against Knives chest, she’d never laughed this much in bed with anyone else.

“This is unfair, I didn’t even know there were other ways to masturbate until right now!”

“We could explore other ways later if you want. But would you be interested in fingering me?”

“What?”

Kim takes Knives’ hand and, looking right in her eyes, licks them. “Experiment a little bit with these? I really want you to put these inside me.”

Knives blushes, still blinking in surprise, so Kim opens her mouth and sucks two of Knives’ fingers in, letting her tongue rub up against them.

Turns out Knives can get four fingers in Kim; small hands are amazing.

They lay on the bed afterwards and Kim doesn’t talk about how she feels like her life is out of control. She just listens as Knives talks about going to college, how cool Kim is, and about how new this is to her.

“Do you think we could do this again?”

“The casual sex?” Kim pretends to think it over. “Yeah sure. I’d like that.”

“What if…” Knives looks unsure but determined. “What if it was more like dating?”

Kim smiles and kisses her.

\-----

They date. It takes Scott three weeks to figure it out, which is faster than Kim was expecting. Ramona probably told him. Knives doesn’t tell her family about Kim, she didn’t tell them about Scott or Neil either but, well, Kim wants this to be different.

When Knives moves out to start college and into her dorm in the fall, Kim finds herself in a coffee shop waiting for Knives to text her. Knives wanted to spend some quality time saying good bye to her family, and Kim’s pretending that she took the bus into town yesterday. She’s been in town for a week already, but she doesn’t want to spoil the surprise. Kim fidgets with her letter, the one that came to her parents house before she and Knives really started to date.

Kim doesn’t known how to talk to Knives about her life, but she’s figuring if they are going to actually try to make this long distance relationship work that she needs to start.

When Kim gets the text she walks over to Knives’ dorm. Knives’ room is small but she doesn’t really have enough stuff for it to be a problem. Knives lights up when she opens the door, just like every time, like she’s surprised that Kim is really there. They make out for a little bit before Knives’ roommate shows up and moves their stuff in. Kim hangs around, not knowing how to say the things she needs to say, while Knives tries to feel out what her roommates sleeping patterns are and how they are going to share the closet.

Once the roommate takes off and they are alone again Kim is in the middle of a pep talk to herself when Knives suddenly stops and stares at her wall.

“What is this?” Knives asks. “Did you put this here?”

Kim walks over to find Knives pointing to a note on her shrine that used to feature mostly Scott and Sex Bob-omb, but now mostly features Kim. Knives turns bright red whenever Kim tries to look it, which is all the time.

There’s a note on it, familiar but yet different. It just says: “raise your expectations.” Kim smiles at it.

“It wasn’t there before,” Knives says. “Is it a prank?”

Kim is only slightly taller than Knives, but she’s never been more aware of the shape of the woman in front of her than she is now. “I have one of those notes too. It took me forever to figure it out.”

“Oh yeah, what does yours say?”

“It says: “lower your expectations” but I think it means don’t miss the things right under your nose,” Kim says, leaning down a little to kiss Knives. “You can come over and see it sometime after class.”

Knives blinks at Kim. “Maybe on the weekend? It’s kind of a long bus ride back to Toronto.”

“Actually, I’m just down the street.”

Kim reaches into her pocket and finally shows Knives her acceptance letter. She sent out applications to so many colleges when she was stuck up north at her parents place, back between book 5 and 6. She didn’t send them off expecting to get in, she just wanted her mom to stop bugging her. But, somehow, they both got into the same school. “I didn’t want to get in the way of the whole dorm experience and I wasn’t sure if you really wanted to stay together with me. But if you want to, I’d like to keep dating you.”

Knives throws her arms around Kim and with a blinding smile on her face, raises her head a little to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to my Yuletide chat beta for helping me out, anything still wrong with the story at this point is entirely my fault. Feel free to comment with constructive critique or to let me know if there's anything that still needs fixing.


End file.
